Original english notice concerning donations, as included in The Word version 3

theWord – important notice, please read carefully
This is an important notice that requires your attention. Please take about two minutes to read through it.

Please read carefully and consider prayerfully.

Introduction

Dear theWord user,

My name is Costas Stergiou. I am the author of theWord. This short notice appears automatically to you since it seems that you are a frequent user of the Software. I thus assume that you find it useful (or you just selected the Donate menu). I hope that theWord has proved to be a helpful tool to assist you in the study of the Word of God.

The reason for this notice is to present to you with a few thoughts about this software and to help you make an educated decision concerning the possibility of making a monetary donation as a way to support and further promote the development of theWord. This dialog will never appear again if you just allow it remain on your screen for at least two minutes (you can access it from the menu Help->Donate any time). I kindly ask you to invest these couple of minutes to read through this notice as a minimum gesture of appreciation for this free software you use.

theWord is free for you, but actually quite costly

the Word consists of about 200,000 lines of code and is the result of about 10,000 hours of working time (this corresponds to about 5-6 years of labor). It is by the grace and provision of God that it has been possible to invest labor to make this program high-quality and genuinely free. 

The fact that theWord is free for you does not mean that there are no costs associated with the development and support of it. Indeed, the actual costs behind this program are very high, in terms of time and money.

Consider a monetary donation

I would like you to seriously consider the possibility of making a donation to further promote the development of The Word.  Every amount given is important and greatly appreciated.  Furthermore, a monetary donation enables theWord to be developed faster and more efficiently. This notice only appears to people like you that actually use the software somewhat frequently. It seems fair, even according to the Word of God, though not obligatory, to consider this appeal seriously.

I understand that it is not easy to decide to make a donation, and the most common reason is not the cost but the hassle of doing so. I also understand that it is normal for people to be reluctant to give their personal data or make an online payment or donation. However, I would have you to realize that the effort of actually making a donation is very small for you, in comparison with the great time and effort that is invested in this software.

Having said all the above, I want to repeat that this appeal is not intended to coerce you in any way to make a donation, but to make you better realize that what is given to you freely actually has an enormous hidden cost, which has been ‘paid’ mostly by a single individual. I would like you to decide based upon these facts. Unfortunately, the Internet is full of ‘free’ stuff that is either not genuinely ‘free’ in the end, or of such low quality that you would never pay to use it. On the contrary, theWord is and will remain truly free! 

What will you get if you decide to donate

Although I have considered providing enhanced features in The Word to donating users, I will not do so. If I did, theWord would cease to be completely free. So, I want you to know that whether you choose to donate or not, the software will work in exactly the same way. Furthermore, if you do indeed donate you will have no extra benefit regarding the program functionality itself.

However, if you make a donation, in order to show you my appreciation for your extra trouble, I will send you by mail a CD or a flash drive with theWord (the flash drive contains theWord portable, which will run on any PC by just inserting the flash drive into a USB port; there is absolutely no installation). These are only gifts, they are optional and depend on the amount of the donation.

Please, act on your decision

  -  If you have decided to donate, please visit the official site at http://www.theword.net/donate to do so.
  -  If you have decided not to donate, I would be very grateful if you would complete a small, anonymous questionnaire (just a few questions, less than 1 minute) about why you chose not to. This questionnaire is not mandatory. However, please do this as a minimum support for The Word. To do so click here: http://www.theword.net/donate/questionnaire

Thank you for your time,
Costas Stergiou


This notice was originally written in English. Since a translation may not accurately express the thoughts of the writer, you may read the original version at: http://www.theword.net/donate/original